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Comment by ta8645 | Hacker News Reader

This deal, given to Google, once again shows how these laws reward large corporations, and hurt small start-ups who can not broker or afford such exemptions. The Canadian government has become just another corrupt gatekeeper, working for entrenched power.

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> This deal, given to Google, once again shows how these laws reward large corporations, and hurt small start-ups who can not broker or afford such exemptions.

Can you explain how this hurts small start-ups?

I imagine the OP means that Google and other giants already have the lobbying power, funds, and other resources to navigate around political blockades, while start-ups will naturally not have the money, personnel, connections etc. to do the same.

I'm not sure that follows. The bill is specifically targeted at "big tech". Businesses with less than $1 billion in revenue and/or fewer than 20 million active Canadian users are exempt.

Presumably he is talking about news startups. For instance, a news agency with fewer than two employees is not eligible to receive the funds. This makes it difficult to bootstrap a startup news organization while the established players are sitting there collecting free money from the government.

That still seems like a good deal for Google. Anything on its way to becoming Google-sized has a pitstop to deal with the Canadian government at over 100x less revenue.

Twitter is about an order of magnitude too small to have to worry about this legislation.

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